The three winning rules of advertising marketing

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This is a world of products and services that are so different that they are so insignificant that they are meaningless to ordinary consumers.

Today's market is full of products that are not divided up with competitors. Although new technologies appear every week, the best products are invented today and are likely to be copied tomorrow.

For advertising companies, the same quality of the problems caused by the more disturbing, people feel that all ads are the same. This is absurd, because the sole purpose of advertising is to allow consumers to distinguish between the brand in order to minimize the homogeneity of the brand. When everyone is the best, no one is the best.

Mining uniqueness

At first, the American Home Theater Channel (HBO), a paid-subscription television service, was a radical concept. When I was invited to the HBO (advertising copywriting), I realized that HBO was unique.

The HBO model is unique and you have to pay to watch it. There is no precedent for American television viewers. More complicated, HBO is an extra pay channel. You must first hook up with the basic cable and then pay another fee to get HBO service. This has made it harder for consumers to work than usual, and has to pay two times to watch TV.

More interestingly, any advertising that is produced for HBO will be played on television channels for its rivals, such as ABC, NBC, and CBS, among other things. It's like using a Coca-Cola bottle to advertise for Pepsi, or America today advertised in The New York Times: "Hey, look at us. ".

This makes us realize that we cannot say anything negative about traditional television networks and we cannot attack them as inferior products. What we can say is something like, "We're not the channel you're watching, we're different," and even this emphasizes the uniqueness of HBO.

At first, we got into the habit of thinking about HBO as a "recreation center" because we looked at it as a pure entertainment channel-no news, no local sports, only entertainment. We used a Billy (Billy Joel) song, "The Entertainer" (The Entertainer), with a few funny words.

Then we find ourselves repeating the same mistakes of homogeneity, trying to find a unique place to play. The result: "Hey, we're about the same as everyone else, but we're a little bit better." "

So we went back to the original idea: HBO is unique. In fact, we have more or less evolved from the theme ads in the draft scheme: "HBO is different."

None of the other five advertising companies took that view. Neither of them has explored the uniqueness of HBO. They all put forward the concept of homogeneity, trying to give HBO a little bit of a competitive advantage, completely ignoring the fact that HBO is actually an exclusive business. We won the customer.

20 years later, HBO is still my client, but our mission has changed a little, and now we're facing more than 500 threats from a channel that's constantly grabbing viewers. Even with more than 30 million users, HBO still faces the same problem with the constant bathtub effluent, which will add new users at a faster rate than customers. The new theme of the slogan "This is not TV, this is HBO". HBO is not homogeneous with anyone, it is unique and there is nothing like it.

The power of the investigation

Roger Enrique early in the Pepsi company work, by virtue of market forces in the data of the sea fished out a "lily", to achieve a huge career breakthrough. But the needle was not seen by anyone.

At that time, Enrique was the brand manager of Doritos. The brand has three flavors: the original roast corn flavor, the fried corn roll and the new baked cheese flavor. The grilled Cheese nachos attracted Enrique's interest because, although it was the newest product, it had sold well. He wants to know how many consumers have tried new products compared with the two-pillar product-the taste of grilled corn and fried corn rolls.

As a result, he asked the advertising company Trecy Laucker to provide him with three varieties of test rate data. The result of the survey was that the roast corn had a 40% test rate, and the fried corn rolls had a taste of nearly 40%, while the grilled cheese tasted only 10%. The grilled cheese tasting rate made Enrique very depressed.

But when he compares it to overall sales, an interesting paradox arises. The grilled cheese smell is equivalent to the other two more famous flavors. "If the sales are comparable and the test rate is 10% and 40%, it must be that people buy grilled cheese much more often or in a very large amount," he thought. People buy four times times as much baked cheese as other flavors, meaning it has 400% more room to rise. We have a powerful weapon in our hands but we don't know. We have to promote the grilled cheese with a lot of power. "

After that, Enrique ordered the entire team to devote all their energies to the promotion of the grilled cheese-flavored aids. He also went to see his boss, Jim Groby Jim Groebe, and introduced the investigation and the plan. Groby think it makes sense. But Groby's boss did not like the idea because he feared that focusing on one brand would affect the other two. So he told Enrique to continue marketing for three brands.

Enrique decided to pictures his ambition. He came back to his team and said: "Everything continues to focus on a taste of grilled cheese." They instruct advertising companies to make ads, even without mentioning two other kinds. When Enrique gave the ad to Gros, Groby said: "You're on your own, Enrique." It's the right thing to do, but you're putting yourself in jeopardy. "Luckily, after the broadcast, sales climbed immediately and doubled in a year."

The story shows the tremendous power of the investigation in the context of an accurate assessment and bold application. The "test-eating rate" was the defining moment of Enrique's early career. Now, it is a legendary story, and the company wants executives to act as a role model: you can take risks, but you have to be courageous enough to make sacrifices for your beliefs.

Today, Frito is the lucrative machine that governs the salty snacks market. In Unit product computing, it is one of the world's most profitable companies, like Intel and Microsoft. 30 years later, their most lucrative products are still grilled cheese-flavored with multiple aids.

In the love of the Moving

In addition, we want consumers to understand that we treat them as individuals in direct dialogue, not as a demographic figure. We understand their lives and why the brand fits seamlessly with this life.

This can be seen as a marriage of persuasion logic and emotional drama. Not everyone does, but we like to think of it as our creative style and strategy. We expect to get two results and hope that consumers will tell themselves in the most sensible way: "I understand what you say." I understand what your brand can bring me. "Then we want every consumer to feel emotionally:" Speak the truth, I like what you say. That's what you said to me. This is my life. "

If you can reach these two difficult goals, let the consumer accept this logic and feel it emotionally (by weeping, laughing, or whatever), you can create an unbreakable combination.

For example, HBO's "Chimpanzee" ad, which was the first commercial advertisement to receive an Emmy Award.

An old ape scratching his chin, lips move, Marlon in The Godfather's Don, said: "Tata Tattaglia is a pimp, it's impossible to beat Santino." "A young gorilla next to the tree swaying on the branch," Forrest Gump, "Tom Hanks Voice said:" mother said, ' stupid fool. " ’"

The chimps in the ads are talking about classic lines in famous movies, prompting people to realize the simple fact that HBO is a place where "consumers" can always see great movies. They watch too much, so they memorize the classic lines. The emotional part is expressed by orangutans rather than by human beings and cleverly resorted to humor.

Of course, what is not mentioned here is the advertising itself and its implementation. You don't see how dedicated we are to picking and filming these chimps, and we can't see how much we have to do to match their facial expressions and lip move with the soundtrack to make them look like they're talking. You can interpret what I said as best we could, or at least meet our highest standards, in implementing our insights.

It must be pointed out that every step in the process from investigation to execution requires creative talent. The style and size of their selection, lighting, music, video and graphic advertising must always serve to break the same philosophy. The details of the production are not related to the message that is to be expressed in the advertisement, and in the end they become the message itself. If you belittle or disregard these details, it is a "crime" and a scourge of creating unique works.